The courtship of Cord Sandberg has been rather involved as he is both a big-time baseball prospect and a please-come-here quarterback.

This season for Manatee he threw for 2,674 yards, 34 touchdowns and only one interception. He also rushed for 610 yards and was a big reason Manatee was ranked first in the nation for most of the season.

His performance snagged him his third consecutive HTPreps Offensive Player of the Year award.

His abilities in that sport gained him several Division I scholarship offers, especially early on. But prior to the 2012 season, he committed to play football for Mississippi State.

But professional baseball could be in his immediate future depending on how the June draft unfolds and what kind of season Sandberg has as a senior center fielder.

Last year he hit .358, but it was his play during several national showcases this summer that led to his stock rising higher. He said he has already been approached by five or six agencies hoping to represent him in baseball negotiations.

After the football season, Sandberg went to Port St. Lucie and worked out for the New York Mets. When he walked into the clubhouse a Mets jersey with his name on it was hanging in a locker.

The Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, Seattle Mariners, Tampa Bay Rays, Colorado Rockies, Milwaukee Brewers and Toronto Blue Jays have all been to Sandberg's house to talk with him. Some came during the football season.

Sandberg took a personality test for most of the teams, and some of the questions were quite unusual.

(For the record, he would rather be a dog than a cat, unless you are talking about a jungle cat, then he’d rather be a cat.)

Some of the teams gave him a vision test, too. They had Sandberg put on a pair of 3D glasses, look at a laptop computer screen and click wherever a diamond popped up. It starts easy and quickly gets harder.

“I enjoy talking to them about different things,” Sandberg said. “The main thing they ask is, ‘What is the football-baseball situation like? Do you enjoy baseball? Is baseball an option?’

“I say, ‘Yes sir, I want to play baseball if the situation is right.’ ”

As for football, the courting of Cord started way earlier. Sandberg talked to at least 40 schools and heard from hundreds of others. Auburn offered him a scholarship after his freshman year, and he had around 15 Division I offers to weigh.